I cry for South America—Paraguay, Suriname, Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia, Brazil & Peru are suffering a silent decimation by #COVID19 unlike anywhere else. Even in 7th-placed Peru, deaths per million is 9.12–more than 3x India. Countless families lost. 😢
theguardian.com/global-develop…
2) “There’s really so little support from the government – it’s a disaster. They should have prepared for all this from the start of the pandemic.”
As she spoke, two women collapsed in the hospital’s entrance, uncontrollable tears announcing another coronavirus death in Paraguay.
3) “We needed intensive care yesterday for my dad and there wasn’t any. There just isn’t any.”
On Wednesday this week, Paraguay registered 18.09 deaths per million, compared with 2.71 in India, 2.2 in South Africa, 1.01 in the US, and 0.14 in the UK.
4) And as the US and Europe begin to emerge from the pandemic, discard their masks and ponder how best to spend the recovery funds, the crisis most evident in Paraguay is playing out across much of South America.
5) Brazil is still having a horrific #COVID19 wave. It never ended for them all this time. We just simply didn’t pay attention. Same for all the countries listed above.

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More from @DrEricDing

20 Jun
It’s coming—#DeltaVariant is now >96% dominant in 3 major counties (UK, Russia, Portugal). It is surging exponentially in the US at now 31% of all cases, up from ~10% just a week ago. The #COVID19 rise & divergence hidden by fast dropping #AlphaVariant. 🧵
on.ft.com/3xzeFpZ ImageImage
2) Notice the strong divergence of #DeltaVariant vs #Alphavariant. This was why the rise of Delta was hidden so long underneath total case counts dropping and plateauing Image
3) this was hospitalization in the UK one week earlier. Very different than before #DeltaVariant domination. ~30% of deaths even among those fully 2 dose vaccinated, according to PHE (England’s CDC). This is the Delta.
Read 16 tweets
20 Jun
Don’t do wrong antibody test—many early commercial #COVID19 antibody tests look for antibodies to nucleocapsid, or N, protein. But N antibodies are not as powerful, & not produced by spike protein vaccines (most Western vaccine). @DavidLat’s story.
nytimes.com/2021/06/20/hea…
2) “Most people shouldn’t even be worrying about this,” said Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale University.
But antibody tests can be crucial for people with weak immune systems or on certain meds—
3) “encompassing millions w/ organ donations, have certain blood cancers, or who take steroids or other drugs that suppress the immune system. Mounting evidence suggests that a significant proportion of these people do not produce a sufficient antibody response after vaccination.
Read 13 tweets
20 Jun
New outbreak in 44 kids at a middle school in Israel 🇮🇱 with #DeltaVariant, the second such outbreak at a school this week—both Delta. Several fully vaccinated adults also infected at school. 🇮🇱 also recently stop requiring #COVID19 tests upon arrival. 🧵
timesofisrael.com/in-2nd-israeli… Image
2) Israel just approved vaccines for kids 12-15 in early June so kids under 16 haven’t been fully vaccinated yet. But even if fully vaccinated, while lower risk, #DeltaVariant is still problematic.
3) for those who try to say / claim that kids don’t get sick… 1% hospitalization among kids in UK during #DeltaVariant era is too damn high. Would you roll the dice with 1% hospitalization risk for your kids?
Read 13 tweets
20 Jun
10% of all #COVID19 hospitalizations last week were among fully vaccinated, despite >50% adults fully vaccinated in the UK— ➡️ this is the #DeltaVariant, which is 99% of all 🇬🇧 cases. I’m a big 2-dose vaccine advocate—but we still need strong precaution.🧵news.sky.com/story/covid-19… Image
2) Please take #DeltaVariant seriously — it’s the fastest transmission variant known to date. Much much faster. And it has somewhat vaccine evasion, especially 1 dose, and it is much more severe (higher risk of hospitalization)
3) Because #DeltaVariant is roughly 2x more contagious — ie 2x the R0 of the original virus, the R0 of Delta is likely 6-7. Let’s assume 6, and someday hit 70% *2-dose* with 90% efficacy (but AZ is ~60%), only then can we stop it… but no country is there yet.
HT @GosiaGasperoPhD Image
Read 15 tweets
19 Jun
📍Serious—Biden warns #DeltaVariant “will leave unvaccinated people even more vulnerable. It is more easily transmissible, potentially deadlier & particularly dangerous for young people. if you have 1 shot, get 2nd shot as soon as you can” #COVID19
cnbc.com/2021/06/18/bid…
2) #DeltaVariant is the most serious worrisome variant known to date— its leaps and bounds faster transmission than other variants. See new study thread 🧵
3) just this week, CDC (at last) declared and upgraded the warning level of #DeltaVariant a “variant of concern”
Read 5 tweets
19 Jun
Untold heroes who defeated polio—to prove his vaccine, Jonas Salk needed 400,000 glass tubes🧪 w/ temperature sensitive “Henrietta Lacks cells” (from a Black woman)—cultivated by Black scientists at Tuskegee, who made 10,000 vials/week.

By @ainissaramirez scientificamerican.com/article/hidden…
2) researchers needed special “HeLa cells”, the living line of cells that were taken without permission from a Black patient named Henrietta Lacks decades earlier. After blood draw from vaccinated patient, it was placed in a glass dish along with HeLa cells & small dose of polio.
3) “With those items, a microscopic—and deadly—battle commenced. In the dish, the poliovirus tried to attack the HeLa cells. If there were enough of the proper antibodies in the patient’s blood, however, they blocked the virus from causing any harm.
Read 17 tweets

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